Astronomy Picture of the Day

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2019 January 3
                                      [2]
                              Ultima and Thule
Image Credit: NASA [3] , Johns Hopkins University APL [4] , Southwest Research
                                Institute [5]

Explanation: On January 1 New Horizons encountered [6] the Kuiper Belt object
nicknamed Ultima Thule. Some 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, Ultima Thule
is the most distant world ever explored by a spacecraft from Earth. This
historic image [7] , the highest resolution image released so far, was made at
a range of about 28,000 kilometers only 30 minutes before the New Horizons
closest approach. Likely the result of a gentle collision [8]  shortly after
the birth of the Solar System, Ultima Thule is revealed to be a contact
binary, two connected sphere-like shapes held in contact by mutual gravity.
Dubbed separately by the science team Ultima and Thule, the larger lobe Ultima
is about 19 kilometers in diameter. Smaller Thule is 14 kilometers across.

               News: New Horizons science results briefing. [9]
                      Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [21] (MTU [22] ) & Jerry Bonnell [23]
                                  (UMCP [24] )
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              A service of: ASD [27]  at NASA [28]  / GSFC [29]
                           & Michigan Tech. U. [30]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1901/20190102UltimaThule-pr.png
  [3] http://www.nasa.gov/
  [4] http://www.jhuapl.edu/
  [5] http://www.swri.edu/
  [6] https://twitter.com/newhorizons2015
  [7] http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/ News-Article.php?page=20190102
  [8] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00...
  [9] https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive
  [10] ap190102.html
  [11] archivepix.html
  [12] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [13] lib/aptree.html
  [14] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apo...
  [15] calendar/allyears.html
  [16] /apod.rss
  [17] lib/edlinks.html
  [18] lib/about_apod.html
  [19] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?dat...
  [20] ap190104.html
  [21] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [22] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [23] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnel...
  [24] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [25] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [26] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Priv...
  [27] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [28] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [29] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [30] http://www.mtu.edu/

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